As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to users is information handling systems. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
An information handling systems can include a server chassis, or enclosure, in which multiple blade servers can be installed. A typical blade server with a baseboard management controller (BMC) does not have a native real time clock (RTC) and may rely on the basic input/output system (BIOS) associated with the server chassis to get the time. Events that occur before the blade server POSTs to the point where RTC information can be retrieved by the BMC can be logged to a system event log (SEL) associated with a chassis management controller (CMC). However, there are many blade server level failures and chassis level failures that can prevent the blade server from POSTing and retrieving a timestamp from the chassis BIOS. For blade servers that cannot POST, events cannot be time stamped, and it can be substantially impossible to differentiate when events occur.
Additionally, real time synchronization in modular systems between the server chassis BIOS, the blade server BMC, CMC, and various input/output (I/O) modules can be problematic. For example, real time synchronization can be difficult in cases in which blade servers within a single chassis or sold or leased to different customers in different time zones since BMC timestamps would be with respect to each blade server customer time zone and not with respect to the real time within the chassis.
Accordingly, there is a need for an improved system and method of providing real time to blade servers, and other chassis devices, within a server chassis.
The use of the same reference symbols in different drawings indicates similar or identical items.